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Clerk's Tale. East Tennessee State University Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University Electronic Theses and Dissertations Student Works 5-2003 "And Gladly Wolde He Teche": Chaucer's Use of Source Materials in the "Clerk's Tale." Robert R. Brandon II East Tennessee State University Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.etsu.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Brandon, Robert R. II, ""And Gladly Wolde He Teche": Chaucer's Use of Source Materials in the "Clerk's Tale."" (2003). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 748. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/748 This Thesis - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Works at Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “And Gladly Wolde He Teche:” Chaucer’s Use of Source Materials in the “Clerk’s Tale” ________________________________________________ A thesis presented to the faculty of the Department of English East Tennessee State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Arts in English _________________________________________________ By Robert R. Brandon May 2003 _________________________________________________ Dr. DiCicco, Chair Dr. Powers-Beck Dr. Stanley Keywords: Chaucer, Clerk’s Tale, Griselda, Canterbury Tales ABSTRACT And Gladly Wolde He Teche: Chaucer’s Use of Source Materials in the “Clerk’s Tale” By Robert R. Brandon Few of Chaucer’s works provoke such animosity as does his “Clerk’s Tale.” Modern critics are divided by the social and gender issues to which the tale lends itself. However, the tale was immensely popular to Middle Age audiences and was one of the best loved of the Canterbury Tales. Therefore, to dismiss this tale’s literary values outright, as some critics have done, is a mistake. By examining the history of the Griselda story, Chaucer’s use of his source materials, and the tale’s placement within the Canterbury Tales, this thesis is an attempt to examine the tale in more culturally, religiously, and historically appropriate way. 2 CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT………………………………………………………… 2 Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………… 4 2. BOCCACCIO’S GRISELDA: AN EXEMPLUM OF LOVE ……………………………………………… 10 3. “BY HIS WORDES AND HIS WERK:” PETRARCH AS CHAUCER’S SOURCE FOR THE “CLERK’S TALE”……………………………………… 29 4. THE DUAL MEANING OF CHAUCER’S “CLERK’S TALE”…………………………………………………… 42 5. CONCLUSION…………………………………………… 63 WORKS CITED……………………………………………………… 65 VITA ….......................………………………………….....………… 70 3 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Clerk’s Tale,” which tells the story of the patient Griselda, is an important addition to a popular medieval narrative. Three of the period’s most noteworthy authors, Boccaccio (1313-1375), Petrarch (1304-1374), and Chaucer (1340?- 1400), each created his own version of the tale, and there were numerous other adaptations produced as well. In fact, an example of the story exists in each of the major genres of literature: poetry, prose, and drama. That the Griselda narrative received so much attention demonstrates this story’s importance to medieval readers. Intending his version to be instructional, Chaucer’s poem is created in rhyme royal, the meter reserved for his most didactic poems.1 However, exactly what lesson Chaucer teaches in the tale of Walter’s inhuman cruelty and Griselda’s incredible patience is less clear. A survey of recent literary criticism shows a great divide in interpretations of this tale. Many critics see the poem as allegory, while others argue that feminist and social messages are integral to the meaning. Still others take the position that Walter is “too monstrous” and Griselda is “too pathetically human” for the tale to have any moral purpose (McNamara 184). In order to understand this complex tale, it is necessary to examine its place within the structure of the Canterbury Tales and the authorities that the Clerk calls upon for support. By understanding the narrator that Chaucer chose for the tale and the meanings of the many allusions and citations that the Clerk uses during the tale as well as the Clerk’s rivalry with the Wife of Bath, the ultimate message of the narrative becomes clear. 1 Chaucer employs rhyme royal and religious pathos in many of his didactic poems. Examples of this style include such works as “The Parliament of Fowls,” Troilus and Criseyde, “Man of Law’s Tale,” “Second Nun’s Tale,” and “The Prioress’s Tale.” 4 The tale of a woman patiently enduring her husband’s tests has a long folk history. The origins of the story are unclear, but a popular notion is that the story is derived from ancient Cupid and Psyche legends. This tradition is similar in that “an other worldly lover places upon his mortal wife requirements that, no matter what happens, she be obedient and neither show emotion nor protest” (Severs 5). However, these early versions are much simpler than the complex tale that Chaucer creates and probably share only the most basic narrative similarities to the story that Boccaccio placed within his Decameron. However, the narrative that Boccaccio established sets the framework that all future writers follow, and careful examination of his story makes understanding the works of Petrarch and Chaucer much easier. Boccaccio is the first writer known to adapt the folk story of the patient Griselda into literature, and he used it as the closing tale in the Decameron. In it, the vassals of a popular marquis beg their lord to take a wife lest he should die without leaving an heir. Against the marquis’s better judgment, he agrees to wed contingent on the fact the he choose the bride. They agree, and he selects the lovely but poor Griselda. The marquis takes this peasant girl from her humble roots with the warning that she must obey him in all things. He soon decides to put her obedience to a series of tests that strip her of her beloved children as well as her dignity. Finally, the marquis is overwhelmed by her amazing display of obedience, and he restores her children and her position. This represents the basic plot that all future writers will follow, and it is this narrative that inspired the famed moralist Petrarch, Chaucer’s main source, to create his own version of the tale. 5 Both Boccaccio and Petrarch chose to use the literary form of the exemplum for their stories. The exemplum was one of the most popular genres in the Middle Ages. Joseph Albert Mosher describes the purpose of the exemplum as “to furnish a concrete illustration of the result of obeying or disobeying some moral law” and notes that the trope displays “constant echoes in the works of such men as Boccaccio and Chaucer” (8 and 139, respectively).2 The purpose of the genre “was to show what lengths that a quality might conceivably go” (Kittredge 131). Petrarch, who was quite fond of the trope, defines it as a “way of reading in which the reader imagines himself as the character tested by fortune in order to examine whether he could do what the character did” (Morse “The Exemplary” 60). Certainly, in the story of Griselda one could find many exemplary virtues, and one of the major debates among critics is over what virtue this tale is supposed to be portraying. Over the years, the story has been seen alternately as an example of spiritual obedience, patience, constance, obedience, munificence, and marital roles. It seems as if there are as many ways to read the story as there are readers. However, one thing we, as modern readers, must understand is that “the exemplum is quite literally about the maintenance of Christian authority in the social space of historical reality” (Scanlon 30). Because the exempla are so foreign to the modern way of thinking, it is easy to dismiss them as unrealistic. This is a great mistake, for medieval readers understood that the purpose of the exemplum is to inspire readers to emulate the examples of virtue found therein. Recent criticism of Chaucer’s version of the tale seems to be driven by two major forces. The first of these is the feminist approach to literary criticism. Not surprisingly, there has been a strong outcry by feminist critics against Griselda’s silent obedience. 2 Elsewhere in his book, Mosher notes that Chaucer uses the trope of exemplum in other tales, most notably the “Pardoner’s Tale” (8). 6 One such critic goes so far as to say, “Griselda fails in a woman’s first duty, the defense of her offspring,” noting that Chaucer’s tale fails artistically because of the flaws in Griselda’s character (Lounsbury 340). Another important force in contemporary criticism of the tale is “Chaucer’s Discussion of Marriage” by George Lyman Kittredge. This article has spawned numerous responses, arguing both for and against the legitimacy of Kittredge’s views. Kittredge posits that, while the stories in the Canterbury Tales can certainly be studied by themselves, it is a mistake to consider any of the tales without first considering the “connecting links” (130). Chaucer places his stories within a very intricate structure, and each tale exists in relation to its narrator and the surrounding tales. For the “Clerk’s Tale,” the connection is between it and the rest of the “Marriage Group,” which also includes the “Squire’s,” “Merchant’s,” “Franklin’s,” and “Wife of Bath’s Tale.” Ultimately, Kittredge decides that the “Clerk’s Tale” is an answer to the Wife’s belief that the only way to have a happy marriage is for the wife to rule her husband. By telling the story of a woman who is the “antithesis” to the Wife of Bath in every way, the Clerk shows the error of her thinking and demonstrates that any woman who follows such a path will “make her husband miserable, as she did” (140-143).
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